Dead Romancer
by Princess Daenerys
Summary: Quietly and ever so gently, she set his shaking hand between her breasts. Erik gripped her hand, for he felt nothing. No heartbeat at all.
1. Breathe my breath of Life

The yellow flame flickered its gentle light over the many sheets of rough and weathered parchment, illuminating ancient documents cluttered with tiny black lettering. The penmanship was elegant and bold, but crammed into such small font.

Erik swirled the red feathered quill across the wrinkled manuscript, gracefully spilling the ebony colored ink onto the surface.

There was a harsh rap at the wooden door. Erik sighed, and set his ruby peacock's feather back into the inkwell.

As he opened the door, cold winter wind rushed into the room, almost choking the tiny candle. The gathering of old documents fluttered, as if they wished to take flight on the icy wind and out the door.

A woman wrapped in black shawls stood huddled in the narrow doorway, her pallid face obscured by black veils.

"Father Hawthorne," she said softly. "It has happened….again."

Erik enveloped the woman into his strong arms, bringing her into the warmth of the room, shutting the door behind him.

He led her to a mahogany chair, and as she sat, he resumed his position behind the stilted ebony desk.

"Mystere, promise me you'll utter nothing but the truth. On god's word."

Mystere placed a spidery hand on the leather bound book. "I promise, Father."

She lifted her silk black hoods from her face, long charcoal locks falling into her lap. Erik stared, his sculpted cheeks flushing slightly at the voluptuous beauty of this young woman.

"It felt as though it were summer again," she murmured. "The moon felt like the bronze sun, and the snow felt like warm, salty sand."

Erik nodded, running his hands over his thick black hair, tied back with a red ribbon. He snatched up his scarlet quill once again and began to write furiously.

"I saw a man. A man with bloodshot eyes. He had white hair, but yet he was so young…" she paused, tracing the tip of her long nail in a particularly deep gouge on the table's damaged surface.

"And he was not alone. There were others with him, all of them possessing the same mark."

Erik's quill scrawled across the yellowed parchment. "Same mark…" he murmured.

"The rest of them had hair as black as the midnight sky. He seemed to stand out from the rest of them, the white haired one."

Erik stopped his arduous writing for a moment. "Were you standing with them?"

Mystere shook her head. "We were distant, but I could still feel the cold wolves howling. The cathedral was barely lit, and some of them crouched in the rafters."

Erik nodded, setting the crimson quill back into its glass inkwell. "I will think on this. And since the twelfth hour is nearing," he glanced quickly at the clock, "You'd best be making your way home, Mystere."

Mystere nodded, pulling her dark veils over her head once more. She meekly walked to the door, followed by Erik, who nimbly grabbed his long black cloak from the small brass hook on the wall.

Just after Erik drew the dark cloak around his shoulders, Mystere turned to him. "Thank you, Father Hawthorne." She whispered. Mystere softly kissed him on the cheek, then turned and pushed out the door and into the bitterness of the snowy night.

Erik stood in the doorway, entranced by the kiss he had just received. But as he shut the cathedral door behind him, the cold wind hammered against him, bringing back callous thoughts of Mystere's woes.

_Damn, _he thought bitterly when he remembered that he had forgotten his horse. _And on the night where I need him the most. _

Erik longed to stay inside the warm cathedral, but his fears turned him against it. _The cathedral is empty on nights like these…yet filled with an unmistakable darkness…_

Erik trudged along the snowy path, head ducked down to avoid the steady wind. Snowflakes sparkled in Erik's dark hair, like stars nestled in the night sky. He soon entered the woods, where the bare skeletal trees did their best to shelter the poor priest on his journey homewards.

Branches clawed at him and tore at his cloak like cat claws. The wind howled as the chalky moon shone through the thorny backwoods, pushing the shivering priest along.

Erik soon came to a fork in the road. The path was obscured by the pilings of white powder and perhaps would have forsaken a traveler who wasn't familiar with those woods, but Erik had walked the path countless times and easily found his way.

Erik's left foot suddenly crushed something. He abruptly stopped, feeling the slight difference between the crunch of the frozen dead grass underneath and the crackle of fluffy snow.

He ignored it, but when his foot came down and felt it yet again, Erik kneeled in the snow. He dug his bare fingers around until he felt it. "What in the world…" Erik murmured. It looked like an _arm._

Suddenly, the arm moved. It shivered. Erik yelped, and began to dig as quickly as he could, snow flying like white paint splashed against the ebony sky.

Erik soon had unburied as much snow as he could. His fingers were stiff and numb, but he ignored the needle like pain. He looked upon the child.

The girl lay in the snow, looking as though she were merely sleeping. Her skin was so pale that Erik could see light blue veins running cold blood throughout her body. Her white toes and fingers were webbed, and they curled around the snow as if it were a soft colorless quilt.

And her long, wavy hair lit Erik's eyes. Streaks of fire in the snow. A fiery orange red, like the rising sun.

She wore nothing, and Erik's heart thudded hard in his strong chest, the cold air drifting and falling in his throat. _Who could have left such a beautiful child out in the cold?_

Erik lifted the frozen girl into his arms, and ran the rest of the way home. Darkness shrouded his way, but he pushed past it, the girl's hair obliterating it with its blood red burn.

_Breathe my breath of life I give to you. _


	2. Sleeping Somewhere cold

Christine lay on the small, shabby mattress. The thin, worn blankets wrapped around her shivering body weren't nearly as thick as they should have been to keep a girl warm on a winter night.

Christine's small sister, Angelique, lay pressed up against her. The two sisters huddled together on the pad, attempting to trap any heat they had left in their bodies.

"Christine?" Angelique whispered, shivering. "When will the cold leave? Why does the winter make us cold? Is it mad?"

Christine hugged the girl. "Angelique, the winter is full of cold, unfeeling angels, riding on the icy wind."

"Why are they cold and unfeeling? Doesn't anyone love them?"

"No," Christine said, sadness washing over her. It almost made her feel good to dwell in her own misery.

Angelique didn't like sad stories. "What about summer?"

"Summer is laden with beautiful, blissful angels."

Angelique shivered as a particularly heavy gust of cold snow blew through a large hole in the crumbling plaster. "And…..and they're happy because they're loved?"

"Yes."

"What about spring? Are there happy angels in spring?"

"The angels in spring are weeping angels. They're sad, but spread warmth throughout the air."

"And fall?"

"Angels must go to heaven, or they will perish. God takes them in his arms and loves them."

"But if god loves them, then how come the winter angels are so sad? Does he care about them?"

"Of course he cares, Angelique. He made them. They're supposed to be sad. That's just the way things are."

"Are we winter angels, Christine? Are we?"

"No. Humans cannot be angels. Angels are gods' messengers, and since they're of god, we can't see them, they're there. They're always there."

"Like Papa? Is he here too?"

"Yes."

Snow billowed in through a crusty hole in the wall, spilling white paint and powder on the frozen dirt floor.

"Angelique, we can't stay here anymore. We'll die."

"But….but where will we go, Christine?"

"We can go to the cathedral. God will welcome us there."

Angelique shook her blonde head. "No. It's too big and full of ghosts."

Christine laughed, despite the snow pounding its way through the old walls of the tiny house. "There's no such thing as ghosts. Those are just stories."

Angelique just stared with wide eyes. "No. There are ghosts. I can see them. They're all around us."

Christine ignored her indignant little sister, and crawled off of the ancient mattress and onto the weathered floor, half covered with cold dirt and icy snow. She pulled the worn blanket around her like a cloak, and then beckoned to Angelique. "We'll walk to the cathedral. It isn't too far."

Christine knew that she and her sister would die on the way to the cathedral. She knew they'd never make it, that the wind would be too strong, and the numbing sensation would spread like an epidemic. She knew the snow would bury them, and in the bitter morn, old women might find their frozen bodies and haul them onto a wagon, to be dragged off to an unknown cemetery.

Yet, Angelique, tears iced on her lashes, and curly angel's hair in tangles, looked so full of hope. Her small hand gripped Christine's. "We'll make it there, won't we, Christine?"

Christine smiled wearily. "We might."

And through the quiet night they walked, dragging their numb feet like dull puppets. The snow piled up on their white skin, and Angelique never let go of Christine's hand.

After awhile, Christine found that her legs refused to move. Red veins pulsed, and blood slowed to a stop. Christine fell to her knees.

"Christine!" Angelique shouted. She tried pulling her sister up by the arm, but the wind swept through like a serial killer, tossing her to the cold earth like a rag doll.

The two sisters lay there, on their peaceful bed of snow, pale arms at their sides.

_We…we're dying…_

"Papa…"


	3. The sound of Bells

"_Till this day, you wouldn't have lasted through the night_

_Till this morn, you wouldn't have lasted through the light_

_Lay down these lies, and suffering things_

_Just taunt me with pearls, pendants and rings _

_Hop out of your window and softly below the street, _

_Follow tracks in the snow and wolves white as sheet_

_Witches come, singing songs in my head_

_Witches leave, and nine lay dead._

_Witches come, singing songs in my head_

_Witches leave, and nine lay dead."_

Raphael ran his fingers through his long white hair. His scalp tingled and itched, and as tempting as it was, he dared not scratch it. He knew the aching swell in his bowels would return at the sudden whiff of old blood, crusted beneath his fingernails from the sickly state of his scalp.

Raphael lifted his eyes to the stained glass windows of the cathedral. Darkness marred them for now, the splashes of colors blackened and shadowed. Saints white robes were tainted black in the moonlight, and eerie starlight crept through tiny cracks in the frozen windowpanes, streaking pale illuminations across churned slush and deep pilings of white dust.

Trees lifted their branches to the sky, exposed to the chilly wind which burned their skin with searing cold like black fire. The only heat was the smooth wind that whisked through Raphael's cracked dry lips and into the air like tiny grey clouds.

He limped along the side of the cathedral, dragging a bone white hand along through the brittle yellowing snow that clung to the bitter walls. His cloak of soft ebony feathers trailed behind him, causing silky white powder to mar the edge of the feathered blackness.

Through the gentle darkness and falling snow, there was a scream. A strange sort of plea for help, sailing on freezing winter's breath. Raphael turned his face towards the noise, limbs locked into place. He listened intently, and heard, "Christine!"

It sounded like the cry of a small child. A girl, in fact.

Raphael's eyes burned red, and blood dribbled down from the stinging creases. He pulled his scarred lips away from the paper white fangs which dripped with an odd sort of grunge and clear slime.

His right leg still ached from the fresh brand. The muscles were just tingling with needles and new feeling, and so his leg dragged almost uselessly when he walked, making him move with a terrible limp.

He limped quickly, his right leg burning with new pains and pulsing veins. It dragged in the snow, the slush leaving trail marks patterned in the fine whiteness.

Raphael turned his path onto the road, a river of melted snow and mud. He flashed scarlet eyes to the colorless circle in the sky and the abandoned black carriages which littered both sides of the road. _The bodies are close…_

And there. Ahead, on the silky surface of the white mounds, buried deep like queens. Two _lovely_ girls.

Raphael's eyes grew terribly wide, and the ache in his throat consumed him, hailing him with lust and hunger. His tongue flashed out, moistening the smoothness of prickly thorn-like fangs.

He neared them, no longer feeling the pain of his initiated leg. Hunger dug through what might have been a heart, and manipulated any scent of human left in the crumpled and black soul.

Raphael towered over the girls. Their hands curled around curves of the snow like one might grip a quilt during a dark nightmare.

One of the girls had hair like gold, or like perfectly spun yellow thread. Her small body was covered in a ratty old cloth. The other looked a bit older, and had springy frozen curls, the color of churned mud and dried blood.

Suddenly, the curly haired one's eyes opened. She rubbed them, snapping a few brittle eyelashes off in the process. "Who….who's there?"


	4. Spine of God

The frost clung to the cold glass, showering the frozen weeds below with bitter kisses. The snow that had been churned up into slush the night before lay stiffened like brittle mountains of ice crystals. Pine trees swayed in the harsh wind, and dark feathered ravens clung to the soft wisps of warmth, flitting from the red brick chimney.

The wooden door to the house was blemished with ugly scars, claw and sword marks gouged into the deep old wood. The handle was tarnished with a dull yellow glow, and it sobbed, wishing for the warmth of sweet summer days.

Erik awoke to a scream. A shrill, inhuman cry echoed throughout the house, seeping around the mottled hinges of the doors and beneath the cracks of the shabby floorboards. It was everywhere.

He stumbled out of the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. The rough quilts from the bed slid to the cold floor as he hastily crossed the room. He groped for the door handle, and as his fingertips brushed it, he quickly jumped back, letting out a short cry. The handle burned like fire.

There couldn't be a fire in the house, could there? Erik had blown out all the candles, hadn't he?

Erik rushed over to his quilt on the floor. Dragging it to the door, he solved the problem quickly. Wrapping his hand in the thick worn cloth, he could easily turn the handle without getting burnt.

The hallway seemed fine. All the paintings hanging from their sleek silvery nails held still, and the lone rugs were statuesque and motionless, identical from the previous night. Erik moved stealthily down the hall, sensing something, though there was no visible danger, and certainly no fire.

He opened the double doors at the end of the hall, leading to his parlor. The doors were beautifully painted, with soft pastels. He had always loved these doors especially.

He stood in the wide doorway, gaping wide eyed at the horrible scene before him. The rose colored antique couch with the gold tasseled pillows was moved to one side, and the mahogany tea table was thrown on its back. The beautiful glass grandfather clock with wood as old as time was overturned, the crystalline glass shattered. And lush emerald curtains made of the finest silk had been brutally torn from the long windows.

And in the middle of the appalling mess lay the girl. She lay sprawled on the floorboards, pasty white arms and legs clutching a threadbare blanket. Her violent red mane of hair streamed from her head and onto the floor like a blood waterfall. Erik could see the blue veins running up one leg through her translucent skin, and he could see the tiny pale webs between each toe and finger. And suddenly, her wide eyes fluttered open.

Each wide eye was huge, and sparkled with thousands of tiny stars. They were a deep, crescent yellow, and slightly catlike. Her cracked pink lips parted, with a soft little sigh.

"Is you going to whip Satelina?" her voice was so soft and airy, barely audible.

Erik blinked. He had an urge to slap the girl until her white cheeks were flushed with blood and raw, but knew he didn't have the nerve or heart.

"Is you? Is you going to whip her?"

It suddenly drove him mad the way she spoke. He opened his mouth quickly, accidentally letting the words spill from his mouth.

"You speak incorrectly and too softly, child. Who taught you how to speak?"

The girl paused, and sat up. The threadbare yarn clung to her skin with slick warm sweat. "Satelina learns to speak by listening. She listens to them. That's how she learns."

He leaned against the doorway. "Who does she listen to?" he asked, a bit softer and kinder.

She was quiet for a moment, yellow eyes flickering. "I isn't sure. The shadows, she thinks."

Erik raised his eyebrows, thick black arcs on his forehead. "Oh? And who's this alleged Satelina?"

The girl smiled a sad, white smile. "Oh, I is Satelina."

He walked across the haphazard mess of the furniture, all anger washed away. "Satelina." He let the sweet name bound off of his tongue and lick the air like a flame. Satelina nodded her head, bloody mane swinging. "She is I."

"Tell me, Satelina," Erik said politely, "What were you doing lying in the snow?"

Satelina paused. Her eyes froze up, the thin black pupils expanding to swallow her eyes. "I is not in the snow. I is in dark, dark room."

"Where? What were you doing in there?" he pressed.

Satelina's golden eyes swelled up with reddened tears. They fell, silently blemishing her pale moon flesh.

"I is dead, master priest. I is as dead and cold, as a gravestone," she whispered, red water brimming and falling. Slowly, she took his hand in her delicate chalky one. Erik shivered. It was like lingering near the aching dead.

Quietly, and ever so gently, she set his shaking hand between her breasts. Erik gripped her hand, for he felt nothing. No heartbeat at all.


	5. Whisperer

Christine felt a cool breath against her throat from the night stars. It froze her heart banging dully in her chest, and cleansed each frightened gulp of air with chilly death toned strokes. Her bland dirty curls tangled melodically to the rhythm of the wind, dancing across the soft white glass of the streets.

"Who…who's there?" she called out in a whisper. She was greeted with the icy silence of winter. Papa had always laid the girls in the big bed on nights like these. Christine recalled the feels and smells of the feathery white quilts, ruffling around her head like a snow white crown, the kind that would caress Christine and Angelique like two little angels, lost in a soft, warm world of white. On sweet cold nights they'd lay soundly in Papa's big bed, the midnight casting ugly faces through the window. Clouds would form outside of the rose colored curtains made of silvery stardust, licking the windows with silky molten tongues.

The memory lay long forgotten as the dry bitter air choked the last of it. Christine moaned softly, no longer feeling her short, slender legs. The lay buried now, under drifts of chalky moon's breath.

Her skin began to tingle when she felt a cold finger begin to stroke her cheek. The finger traced her porcelain jaw line slowly, gently flicking tiny flakes of snow from her pale flesh that had frozen in place.

"Papa?" she whispered again. "Papa, is it you?" The young girl urged her muscles to work. _Just open your eyes once, Christine. He'll want to see you before you die…_

She gathered the warmth in her body up into her eyelids. The curious eyes flicked back and forth underneath their fleshy imprisonment, urging the heat to lift their icy cover and expose them to the cold beyond.

In one shattering movement, the lids flickered like a flame, smashing the bitter barrier. Christine's wide deer eyes were met with two glittering pools of blood, shining like bright red beacons against smooth, snow colored skin. Glistening droplets of ruby rained softly from those eyes. The eyes widened, and pulled Christine farther into their shocking gaze. "No," she whimpered tearfully. "No! Papa!"

The man let his shivering white lips loose, revealing pronged bone fangs, sliding and glimmering with jewels of frozen dew and flecks of blood.

"Such a sweet little thing," he murmured in a low, raspy voice. "So defiant to live…"

She no longer wanted to see. Yet, some part of Christine wished she could gaze upon his gaunt face again, perhaps when the morn arrived. Some part of her wanted to hold the man, because when she had looked into his eyes, she saw a cold, empty heart, abandoned and locked with a frozen lost key.

Christine shut her eyes quickly, letting the scarce warmth drain down her cheeks from her eyes and flow into her pale arms, covered in bland yellow snow.

She pulled her half frozen arms from the snow. They were stiff and corpse-like, with little fractures, pink incisions, and black bruises speckled across the bumpy surface.

"I…I'm not scared."

The wind whistled like icy vines, wrapping themselves around her swollen fingers. She groped for the dark heavens above, hoping and praying that God would take her quickly.

"I'm not afraid of you!"

And she wasn't. The only thing that scared the poor girl was the fact that her sister might be lying dead in the drift as well, grotesquely solid and stiff like a timeless stone statue.

There was a sickening ripping noise, and her head exploded with an unreal and hotwire pain, whipping the sides of her temples and infecting the puffy red scars twisting together. The snow crunched loudly as the child was thrown back onto the shapeless drift of chalk once more, sending flurries of white ash up into the midnight air.

When she awoke once more, her bruised and battered body was warm and dry. She lay nestled on a soft velvet mattress, fat feathered pillows arranged around her head like a crown of snow. Christine was curled under a dark blue blanket, speckled with pin prinks of silver like a moonless night. When she lifted a hand to her eyes, she saw thick, ghost white bandages wrapped around her wrists and arms, and the frost bitten bruises had disappeared.

She sat up slowly, taking in the dark beauty of the room around her. It was very dark, draped with pitch black and deep purple silk cloths. Lithium colored candelabras peeked out from behind the hangings, their proud, stiff candles standing haughtily with tiny orange flames.

The bed she lay in was a wide four poster. Glimmering crystallized diamonds dangled from the canopy, along with delicate satin scarves dripping like rosy wax off of a letter.

Christine's feet were small echoes on the cold wood floor as she leapt down from the bed. She landed on all fours like a fierce animal, since it was such a tall bed.

She wandered around the room, searching for any significant signs that there was indeed a way out of the mysterious cloaked room. She found nothing.

Christine ran to the bed in despair, throwing out her thickly bandaged arms to hug the wooden post. She let out a few choky sobs, and soon was weeping, warm rain falling down her cheeks.

"Don't cry, little girl." A rich, smooth voice soothed.

Christine frantically looked around. The room was empty, curtains and drapes lined with silvery moth balls and settling black dust. "Who's there?" she called tearfully. "Hello?"

She pushed away from the wooden post. There was suddenly a presence, seething and floating about the room. She could feel it, through her hair, around her ankles, flitting about the draped cloths and the curves of the quilts.

Christine, at that moment, was almost afraid to move. Her small limbs tightened weakly, fingers pulling gently on the white strips along her wrists and arms. "Where are you?" she found herself whispering. "Where've you gone to?"

"I'm here." She heard the voice again. It wasn't nearly as frightening as the pale man's voice staring in her face before. It was deeper, and had less of a rasp.

"Where? I want to find you." She moved closer to a wall where snowy candles flickered, threatening to go out. "Am I close?"

The voice chuckled, almost devilishly. "Come closer."

She obeyed, the tears dried on her skin and long gone. Christine rummaged through magnificent folds of blood red cloth, the silk wavering and rippling at her reckless touch. She hastily moved on to the next wall, stumbling with stiff legs and frantic eyes. Rigid fingers raced down greasy edges and creased nails along the finely worn fabric hems, pulling sky purple threads loose and causing a widespread fray. A pallid candelabrum stood unsteadily, shivering with the everlasting fear of being overturned.

"Where? Where do I look?" she cried, her impatience and frustration taking her by the arms. "Where, where, where!?"

As Christine whirled around, she saw a man seated on the edge of the bed. "Oh!" she gasped, all frustration and anger suddenly gone away.

The man stood, resting a hand against a single wooden post.

"I knew you'd find me."


End file.
